1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to a communication apparatus, such as a facsimile having means for storing registration information including telephone numbers and address information, which is registered individually by a user per an apparatus or a user, particularly to a communication apparatus having a novel feature in controlling the erasing instruction of such a registration information.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a communication apparatus having means for storing registration information registered individually by a user per an apparatus or a user, a facsimile capable of storing telephone numbers, address information and the like, has been known. As such a facsimile, for example, it is known a facsimile provided with a one-touch function that a telephone number or an address is allocated to a particular one-touch key to be recorded so that a user can easily specify a desired address by pressing the key.
Such an information allocation (registration) to an one-touch key, or erasing instruction or alteration of registration information is, for example, executed by a user, who operates the keys of an input-section while observing the display of a displaying section, as shown in FIG. 19. According to such a facsimile, however, the user has to operate the keys one by one to execute processes of registering, erasing, or altering information. It is a common case that the user may desire to erase registered contents from the facsimile containing considerable volume of secret information when the user disposes of it or gives it to another person, lest secret matters should be leaked. However, an erasing operation for that purpose is cumbersome because every registered piece of information has to be erased one by one as described above.
As a device in which the above problem is solved, it is cited a facsimile disclosed in the Japanese Laid Open Publication No. 11-234447 and a communication terminal device disclosed in the Japanese Laid Open Publication No. 2001-186239. The former device allows a user to erase all the dial information together according to a prescribed key operation or to initialize entire setting information to the original state set by a manufacturer at once, making it possible for the user to easily erase all the registration information together. The latter device allows a user to initialize registered data or function settings all at once according to a prescribed operation, also making it possible for the user to easily erase the registration information all together.
When a user erases all the registration information together, various cases are considered, such as of disposal, transfer, or assignment. In each case, actually, exact information needed to be erased varies. For example, all the information is preferably deleted in the case of disposal, but, in the case of transfer, registered addresses for a group transmission may be preferably maintained while registered addresses for a one-touch key or an abbreviated dial is deleted.
However, in each device disclosed in the Japanese Laid Open Publication No. 11-234447 or in the Japanese Laid Open Publication No. 2001-186239, executing a prescribed key operation results in erasing of all the dial information or initializing of the entire registration information. Therefore, it is impossible to erase a group of registration information case by case according to its category in accordance with the purpose of a user, thus, it is inevitable to erase or initialize necessary data along with unnecessary data for erasing instruction. As a result, registration information to be maintained has to be re-recorded, which leads to a problem of cumbersome operations.